ORIGINAL 1998 ROGUE RECORDS PRESS RELEASE
COCK AND BULL: Concrete Routes Sacred Cows
Rogue FMSL 2015 (cassette FMSC 3015)
Last year's Folk Roots magazine compilation album Tap Roots included a track by Cock And Bull amongst their history of the new wave of English country dance music from the traditions to the current roots explosion. Now the band have produced their latest and best album to date, nearly 50 minutes of Anglo-French dance music with a strong flavour of jazz and baroque'n' roll. Concrete Routes Sacred Cows showcases their new line-up, new sound and new technology as they open doors for the '90s.
Milton Keynes' finest sons first hit vinyl as The 'Hemlock Cock And Bull Band with their debut album All Buttoned Up for Topic in 1981, subsequently being three-quarters co-opted into one of Ashley Hutchings’ many Albion Bands, and emerging with a new focus on self-composed tunes for the second LP Eyes Closed And Rocking for Topic in 1985.
By then they'd shortened the name to The Cock And Bull Band, and soon were to shed founders Dave Whetstone (to retirement) and John Maxwell (to Tiger Moth).
The nucleus of French born piper Jean-Pierre Rasle (who had always given the band the Continental end of its unique Anglo-French flavour) and mandocello, dulcimer and acoustic bass guitar player Paul Martin were then joined by keyboard, sax and electronic percussion wizard Pete Lockwood to blast the outfit (now with their name pruned even further to just Cock And Bull) in new and exciting directions. Whilst they still happily play for dancing, the band are now just as at home working in concerts or the theatre. Their dynamic, creative approach to self-written tunes and source material ranging over several centuries of the English and French traditions has seen them propelled into the same class as Ireland's Moving Hearts or Scotland's Battlefield Band.
Concrete Routes Sacred Cows is a landmark album for English roots dance music and a band that's really come of age.
GUARDIAN REVIEW
Cock and Bull is another band which has sloughed off an old skin to re-emerge in a new slimmed-down version. The ubiquitous Jean-Pierre Rasle, however, is still there and it is his virtuosity on French and English bagpipes and a variety of other instruments which determines the continental flavour of the band while exuding Gallic flair. With Pete Lockwood playing sax as well as keyboards, it is inevitable that the band is strong on melody, and fully exploits its harmonic possibilities over largely synthesized rhythm lines. The band's Anglo-French repertoire - the self-styled baroque 'n'roll - has a strong jazz flavour and is performed with great panache. A brawl in Milton keynes will never be the same again.
FOLK ROOTS:
...a pretty daring collection of styles, drifting from English morris music to hornpipes to French dance tunes... with liberal overlap and interplay between them...a richly pleasing and varied collection.
Milton Keynes Gazette:
...I urge you to buy this album whether you are a punk, heavy metal freak, indie man, goth or disco boy as it will blow any misconceived ideas about folk music you may have had... This is contemporary music at its best. Funky folk. Brilliant.
Bagpipes Society:
...it's a long time since I've heard a more beautifully balanced selection of material on an album... undoubtedly their best to date. Go out and buy it now - you won't be disappointed.
|
